Beards
Beards
By
Gary Primo
July 12, 2011
Recently I visited a web site hosted by a group in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on which the host appeared to be making the cutting of one’s beard a salvational issue. Naturally this only applies to men. Now I do sport a beard and have done so almost exclusively since I was about 19. The main reason I started growing a beard is because I had a baby face and wanted to make myself look older so that I could get into bars more easily. The drinking age in Ontario, at the time, was 21. The DOT had made a mistake on my driver’s license stating my birth date as 1940 instead of 1950 – a typing error, obviously, yet I was overjoyed at the prospects of accessing all the alcohol establishments. Still some places squawked about how young I looked so I decided to grow a beard. I used to joke about it saying that I had to grow a beard to ugly myself up so I wouldn’t have to beat the girls away with a stick. (A problem which I never really had, LOL). As I got used to wearing a beard I grew to like it and kept it. I guess you could say it became my trade mark.
Over the years I have come across several groups where the men all let their beards grow untrimmed as some sort of “badge” of righteousness (to make themselves look more righteous). I’ve tried growing my beard long in the past, but it always looked like h-e-double hockey sticks. Therefore, I prefer to keep it trimmed. Ok, it’s a vanity thing, but if you are looking for work or working for yourself in jobs where you are going to be dealing with the public, appearances do matter.
The question we are dealing with here is whether the cutting of one’s beard is a salvational issue. I have found only 5 verses in the entire Scriptures that deal with the issue of beards – not very many for something that is supposed to be pertinent to our salvation. The first on the list is the main passage used by all beard worshippers.
" 'Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.
As you can plainly discern, this commandment was given to the priests only. Now let’s read the full context of this verse.
Lev. 21:1 - And YHVH said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people:
2 - But for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother,
3 - And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled.
4 - But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
5 - They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
These verses are discussing the touching of a dead body and the defilement caused by such action. The priest was only permitted to touch the dead body of a close relative as outlined above. Verse 5 is talking about a custom of the people for when they were grieving. They would shave their heads, trim their beards in some specific fashion and cut themselves. I have read elsewhere that this was a custom borrowed from their pagan neighbours and practiced by the pagan priests. The Levitical priesthood was forbidden from mimicking them.
When David was told about this, he sent messengers to meet the men, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, "Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back."
Lets examine the context of this passage.
2 Sam. 10:1 - And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead.
2 - Then said David, I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David’s servants came into the land of the children of Ammon.
3 - And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?
4 - Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.
5 - When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return.
The king of Ammon had died. David, wanting to extend the hand of friendship toward the king’s son and heir to that throne, sent messengers to broker an alliance between the two nations. The advisors to the new king sought to negate such an alliance and convinced the new king to humiliate the servants by cutting off half of their beards, stripping them naked and sending them back home. Messengers alerted David to the dilemma and David went out to meet them. Naturally these men did not want to return naked and half shaven because they were embarrassed. David advised that they wait until their beards grew back in and I imagine he supplied them with clothing also. The contention I make here is that if these men were not allowed to trim their beards at all, would not the freshly shaved side of their face always be shorter than the unshaved side? Would their shame not always be apparent? Common sense dictates that once their shaven side grew back in they would have trimmed the unshaven side to match.
When someone came and told David about the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, "Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back."
(Same as above)
In that day YHVH will use a razor hired from beyond the River--the king of Assyria--to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to take off your beards also.
The context of this passage is:
Isa. 7:17 - YHVH shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
18 - And it shall come to pass in that day, that YHVH shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 - And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.
20 - In the same day shall YHVH shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.
Once again this passage deals with the subject of humiliation. YHVH is threatening that if the children of Judah do not obey his commandments that He will allow the King of Assyria to invade their lands and take them into captivity. It can be assumed that the Assyrians liked to shave all the body hair off of their male captives as a form of humiliation. It may have also been a way of identifying their captives, making escape attempts more difficult. They would be fairly easy to spot – just like someone today trying to escape jail in their prison clothes.
eighty men who had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes and cut themselves came from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria, bringing grain offerings and incense with them to the house of YHVH.
Again putting this verse into context:
Jer.41:1 - Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and the princes of the king, even ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah.
2 - Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land.
3 - Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, and the men of war.
4 - And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it,
5 - That there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of YHVH.
All of this took place after the Babylonians defeated Judah and led most away captive. A remnant of the Jews was left behind. Other Jews had fled to find sanctuary outside of Judah. Ishmael was one of these. Gedaliah was made governor of the remnant that remained in Judah by the king of Babylon. Back in chapter 40 Gedaliah was warned that Ishmael was coming to murder him but did not believe the report. He; therefore, greeted Ishmael and treated according to the customs of the day. Ishmael broke all the rules of hospitality my murdering Gedaliah and all of his men, but likely thought them to be traitors of the people of Judah. The 80 men who arrived were mourning the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem but were mimicking the mourning rituals of their pagan neighbours. Whether it was because of their mimicking these pagan customs or because Ishmael suspected that they were showing their loyalty to Gedaliah is not clear, but he slew them just the same and buried them in the same pit as the others indicating that he thought them to be “cut from the same cloth”.
There we have it – all five passages in their context. Nowhere is there a commandment given by YHVH for the male members of His family not to trim their beards at all. They were only warned not to copy the customs of the heathens in their rituals of mourning. One can clearly see how easy it is to take a verse out of context and apply it any way one wishes. This is a dangerous thing for any true Believer to do. Scripture interprets itself when one takes all of the scriptures applying to a certain subject and look at them together in their context. Otherwise, true understanding escapes us.
The conclusion of this matter is simply that it is up to the individual whether he wants to trim his beard or not, or, for that matter, whether he wants to grow a beard at all. There is no Scriptural commandment forbidding the trimming or shaving of one’s beard. Anyone who claims there is, is deceived and is trying to convince you of his deception. Believe it not. If anyone teaches that the trimming of one’s beard is a salvational issue, he is a liar. Believe him not.